Orwell’s Revenge: The 1984 Palimpsest

Description

Mark Zuckerberg's 'A Year of Books' Selection. George Orwell's bleak visions of the future, one in which citizens are monitored through telescreens by an insidious Big Brother, has haunted our imagination long after the publication of 1984. Orwell's dystopian image of the telescreen as a repressive instrument of state power has profoundly affected our view of technology, posing a stark confrontational question: Who will be master, human or machine? Experience has shown, however, that Orwell's vision of the future was profoundly and significantly wrong: The conjunction of the new communications technologies has not produced a master-slave relation between person and computer, but rather exciting possibilities for partnership. In an extraordinary demonstration of the emerging supermedium's potential to engender new forms of creativity, Huber's book boldly reimagines 1984 from the computer's point of view. After first scanning all of Orwell's writings into his personal computer, Huber used the machine to rewrite the book completely, for the most part using Orwell's own language. Alternating fiction and non-fiction chapters, Huber advances Orwell's plot to a surprising new conclusion while seamlessly interpolating his own explanations and arguments. The result is a fascinating utopian work which envisions a world at our fingertips of ever-increasing information, equal opportunity, and freedom of choice. Dedication......Page 3 Epigraph......Page 4 Preface......Page 5 Part 1: The Machine......Page 14 Chapter 1......Page 15 The Machine......Page 22 Chapter 2......Page 24 Brain in a Bottle......Page 28 Chapter 3......Page 31 The Ministry......Page 36 Chapter 4......Page 39 The Enemy......Page 45 Chapter 5......Page 49 Doublethink......Page 55 Part 2: The Market......Page 63 Chapter 6......Page 64 The Market......Page 69 Chapter 7......Page 73 The Ministry......Page 78 Chapter 8......Page 81 Chapter 9......Page 87 Chapter 10......Page 93 Doublethink......Page 95 Part 3: Freedom......Page 102 Chapter 11......Page 103 Chapter 12......Page 107 Chapter 13......Page 113 Chapter 14......Page 121 Chapter 15......Page 127 Chapter 16......Page 138 Chapter 17......Page 140 Chapter 18......Page 155 Doublethink......Page 163 Part 4: Doublethink......Page 174 The Future is Passed......Page 175 Doublethink......Page 182 The Machine......Page 193 Loose Ends......Page 198 Acknowledgments......Page 219 Key to Abbreviations in the Notes......Page 222 Notes......Page 224 Index......Page 289 Copyright......Page 302